The Written Word - A Tribute

I'm addicted to words. I love it. In books, in movies, in songs, in a cafe with my best friend sharing coffee and highly caloric treats. I love hearing the way it sounds when my babies say 'Watch me, Mama' or my husband says 'I love you' or the way I can still remember my grandma's voice as she passed on her wonderful wisdom.
The lyrics to a song can touch me like none other sometimes. A passage in a story can bring on the most vivid scene in my head, building the house its speaks of or the person it describes right before my eyes. In a movie, certain words become catchphrases, iconic to the point where they take on a life of their own.
But they all start at the same place - the page. Perhaps on a computer or maybe an idea jotted down on a scrap of paper. A name or sentence written on a crumpled napkin and shoved in a purse to grow its own story later. The page takes all kinds.
But its on this page that lies my true addiction - the written word.
My babies and I go to the library once a week. They don't ask to go for ice cream or to the movies on Fridays when they get home from school, but instead pack their bag of books and off we go. If something else has to be done then, like yesterday, then Saturday mornings are all about that followed by a trip to the book store. Today was no exception.
I just love the smell that a library has. Nothing compares to it, not even a bookstore can truly compete. The quiet interior housing millions of words, thousands of stories, all guarded by three or four trustworthy people who love these stories like I do. Mention a book to them and they know it. They are passionate with love or hate for it and what are we fired up about? Words.
In writing my books, I find myself getting caught up in the words. I want to describe each thing with flowing overwrought beauty or hideousness. There can't be enough words sometimes. You carefully craft your story, hold the characters close to your heart, they live and breathe within you and yet the first thing you have to tell about the book - word count.
And that's the thing - they do count! Every. Single. Word.
I am surrounded by words in my world. I have music coming out my ears, and not that it all has lyrics, but the vast majority - yes, and each one means something. I am, of course addicted to Twitter and Facebook, and the words that people write there. I have posters and paintings and books filled with quotes and sayings and memories put into words, a lifetime worth of words that have made of my life. I also have a vast collection of books in my home - all of us in my family being the big readers we are. I have magazines and far too many subscriptions that come in every month. I have scripts from plays I've done as well as ones I haven't. I have collections of musings by people I admire, just hoping I might learn something from their words. I just can't turn it away. Words you can carry with you when you go.
Think about the last time someone said something to you that was hurtful. Had they slapped you, you would be healed and forgotten the feeling...but the words, they remain. They are powerful. More powerful sometimes than we would even like them to be. Leaders are born with the right words and taken down just as easily with the wrong ones.
But the greatest of all these is a book, the ultimate written word. I love the feel of the paper between my fingers, the crisp, yet gentle sound of a page turning, the way you smile like an idiot and cry like a fool over these simple things printed within, with ink on pieces of mashed trees - words.
I'm not saying that a Nook or an iPad or a collection of eBooks aren't the way to go...it probably is. And it would be much easier than hauling the three or four books I'm always reading, the five magazines I'm halfway through and the two or three notebooks with a slew of pens and pencils for the moments inspiration grabs me to make my own written words. I get it, but I can't do it.
When I first got my iPhone I downloaded some books. It was nice to have when the kids were running late from an activity or there was a line where ever I might be, but it just wasn't the same. The Great Gatsby is great to me not just for the story, but also for the yellowed color of the aged pages, the way the spine is broken in no less than seven places, the way the cover will fall off at any minute despite the scotch tape that litters it. It's the eyes staring out from a blue sky. It's not just the story or the words, its the experience, an old friend if you will.
It gets you through the moment of something or maybe its your first love of reading. I have my copy of The Westing Game from the sixth grade. I loaned it to my son. He fell in love with the little mystery just like I did and when we went to purchase a copy all his own we were both more than a little disappointed it didn't have the same cool cover as mine. I thumbed through it and the words were the same but the pages were white and new and hadn't been read ten times by a blonde headed aspiring dancer in the summer between 6th and 7th grade because her parents split up and she moved to a new town and those characters were her closest friends.
No, nothing can ever replace opening a book and being able to hold an entire universe in your hands.
Every time I get a postcard with one of my magazines telling me to subscribe online I cringe a bit. I love the glossy pages, the way the ink smears on my fingers due to the steam of the water when I'm reading in the bath. The movie reviews in EW come with a smartphone icon to view the trailer online and promise more of the story. But what if I want to read the story myself? Right there? Yes, I can read it online, but I can't pick up the computer and plop it down on the table in front of my husband and say "You gotta read this!" And the irony that you will read this on the computer and not by hard copy is not lost on me.
As a now aspiring writer, it's a scary thing that my love affair with the written word with one day be obsolete in the way I know it. I won't have one or two books that are out of print, but they all will be. My shelves will not be filled with stories but relics as well. Relics of a time when you could spend a Saturday afternoon at the library or bookstore and find those other kindred spirits. We'll all be in our own space, talking through virtual chat rooms or worse, not talking at all.
I know eventually I'll succumb and get myself an eReader. I know every eBook saves trees and makes my inner hippie dance around with flowers in her hair. I know there will come a day when we no longer print books. I know there will be a generation someday too soon that will have never held a textbook in their classroom. They will be able to type in the topic and a brain inside the machine in front of them will find what they need and they will never have to flip through the pages of encyclopedias. They will never know that smell of knowledge that a book can hold. They will no longer carry bags of heavy books to and from school but only a cover for their laptop.
But for now, I look over at my son, grinning ear to ear at his library book on this Saturday afternoon and I think...someday, but not yet.